Battlestar Galactica 1.9: "Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down" (spoiler spoiler burning bright)

Cafe Society
1

New episode tonight.

Note on the title: “Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down” is what’s given on the official website. However, as I was checking this, I found that it was apparently titled “Secrets and Lies” when it aired in the UK. Hmmmmm.

According to the preview, Col. Tigh’s wife, presumed lost, reappears, flying one of the planes from the Flight 19 squadron… oh, wait, wrong disappearance. In any event, since it’s a Tigh episode, I’m guessing we’ll hear Michael Hogan, who plays Tigh, speaking the “previously” recap line at the beginning.

Questions:

How’s Baltar’s Cylon detector coming? He seems to have had a confirmed “hit” when Boomer visited; does that unnerving result make him speed up development, or slow it down?

Speaking of Boomer’s ostensibly negative test, is she going to go to Tyrol with it, hoping for reconciliation? If she does, how will he react? And will she shoot herself in the foot by indulging in more creepifyin’ frottage with the Raider on the flight deck?

Will President Roslin actually take Airlock Cylon’s accusation at face value and begin suspecting Cmdr Adama? And what’s the status of her cancer treatments?

After a fade to the background the last couple of episodes, does Lee Adama get any more development this week?

Back on Caprica, is Boomer 2 really starting to sympathize with humanity, or is this all part of a head game? Does a displeased Number Six offer to take a few more swings at her?

Does his wife’s reappearance make Tigh more or less interested in diving back into the Space Whisky? And how does the fact that she conveniently turns up now affect President Roslin’s possible concerns about Adama?

Any developments on the prison ship?

Of what amazing new talent will Starbuck prove herself to be a master? I suspect by the end of the season she’ll be shown to be the fleet’s best (a) cryptologist, (b) patissier, (c) karaoke drag king, and/or (d) tae-bo instructor.

By the way, there’s a new video documentary on the official site, focusing on Doc Baltar and his runaway psyche. Should be fun. :slight_smile:

2

For this epsiode, scifi.com is offering audio commetary that can be listened to live as you watch the episode (like you would a DVD)

It is commentary from exec producer/writer Ron Moore

Scifi describes it as

It can be downloaded at http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast/

3

Hey, thanks for that info. Should be interesting. I’ll download the whole thing, watch the show, then probably re-watch with the commentary. You know, Scifi.com is getting pretty progressive. They also offer the actual episodes for re-viewing too now, after the US showing. Not enough to stop the UK downloaders, but a nice step in the right direction.

I really like me some Tigh!

4

This is another strong episode.

Light spoilers

The cylon detctor is ‘working’ but it will take years to test every single human in the fleet. The president is worried about Adama being a cylon and Adama is worried about Mrs. Tigh being a cylon. Mrs. Tigh is a bad influence on Col Tigh.

heavier spoilers

I’m not sure about the climax of this episode. I couldnt’ tell if the final confrontation in the lab is supposed to be funny or dramatic. Mrs. Tigh is another strong female character that is really pretty nasty. She is a combo of Lady MacBeth and Maggie the Cat.

5

Funny you should mention Shakespeare in your spoiler. I got the impression from this episode that it was very Shakespearean. I’m not well enough versed in Shakespeare to guess which of his works it resembles, but one of his comedies I think.

6

Actually my understanding is that it will be available for all remaining episodes, released each friday to that site.

And I plan on doing the same thing as levdrakon, watch the episode once (I just got home so I can’t watch it live, but I got a PVR) then watch again with the commentary.

I love how Sci-Fi is embracing the internet for promoting/adding to/just generally making the show better. It’s like someone there wised up and said, “gee, our main audience will be geeks, what do you suppose we can do to make it appeal even more to them?”

Then they got the right answer to that question.

7

Hey, Eddie Olmos directs! Actually now that I think of it, I seem to recall him having helmed a couple of episodes of Miami Vice, back in the day. Checks IMDB Right, also American Me, which I’ve never seen.

Enjoyed the ep. Seems the closest to out-and-out comedy the series has come to so far, yet even here the farce was biting and had weight. I’m quite liking how the creators emphasize the various incompetencies of the principal cast members. The main theme this time round seemed to be everyone from the Prez on down effing up pretty much every single thing they did, with the sole exception of Tighe and his command decision at the end, and then topping things off by lying through their teeth to each other. Reinforces the notion that they’ve survived more through sheer dumb luck than anything else, or that the Cylons are only letting them press on because they might happen to find Earth.

Adama line of the day (more or less): “Madame President, if I’m a Cylon, you all are really screwed.”

Meanwhile I’m getting fairly fed up waiting for some sort of progression in the whole ‘Helo and Boomer run through the sewers of Caprica’ thing. Since they can only seem to spare about 3 minutes of screen time for this plot thread, we aren’t getting much more information per episode than in yer typical four-panel newspaper strip. For the new season, assuming the thread continues, maybe they should consider making every fourth ep or so mainly to do with Caprica.

8

I got the impression from the last ep. that the cylon detector did a reading on Boomer within minutes. Now they say 11 hours. I guess I’ll be rewatching last weeks ep.

I also wonder if there was some point to the cylon raiders’ behavior. If there was I didn’t get it.

9

Well, as I am sure you all now know, this episode was intended to be “farce.”
Lighter and “as close to comedy as BSG can be” according to ron moore’s comments.

I wonder if Ellen is really a cylon or not. I hope they tell us definitively soon. As Apollo said, if she is not a cylon, then we are all in big trouble.

As we may now see, it may be Balter, at least at the moment, who holds what may be the ultimate power, as he controls the “cylon dector” and can provide any results he wishes, as has been demonstrated in the past 2 episodes.

Six certainly seems to be one jealous little robot as well in this episode, as evidenced in her attitude about caprica boomer. As I have previously predicted, the boomers are turning out to be more humanlike than other cylons anticipated causing them to not follow plans as has been intended. Although hybrid babies are apparently part of the plan, as she is supposedly pregnant, which is revealed in the next episode I am curious where her “love” for helio will lead her in the future, and how far astray from the master plan will it lead her.

10

I certainly got that impression as well. Someone need to confirm this in the previous episode. Of course since he frequently lies about regarding the dectetor, including the results, who knows what the truth really is.

11

I liked the episode. The timing was right to have something more humorous after all the heavy episodes (especially the one last week).

But why, with something as important as a cylon detector, do they have only one guy (and a nutcase at that) performing all the tests and seeing the results? Why is no one repeating his tests or verifying that proceedures and test protocol (do they have any) are followed? I realize they’re short on people, but surely they can find someone to train in basic lab procedures.

12

I really liked the last shot, pulling out of the room with Baltar spinning insipidly in his chair while everyone else is in a conversation.

I agree with MaddyStrut about the testing. I mean, training a single assistant could cut the testing time in a by a third or more. And of course, saying that it will take 60 years to do everybody doesn’t mean that you have to do literally everybody to increase security. You start with all the most important positions (Adama, Tighe, command crew, etc…) and then move on.

13

Well, to me this episode seemed too desperate. Desperate to be funny, desperate to build tension, desperate to be something. Unfortunately, scenes like Starbuck walking in on Baltar just fell flat. Strange question though:

was Baltar Jacking off, or not? It was hard to tell and is only of interest because it would speak to how much control the Cylon has of his sensory information.

I hope somone shoves Mrs. Tighe out of an airlock sometime soon. While I don’t love the show, it definitely doesn’t need a “Desperate Houswife” slut running around to improve it.

When is someone going to wise up and demand a psych eval on Baltar? There’s more than enough anecdotal evidence to call for this.

Where was Boomer on the ship this week?

I agree about the Caprica scenes, they need to be fleshed out soon as they are getting a bit stale.

Finally, nearly your whole race was wiped out, but for a few thousand running for thier lives from an unrelenting menace – wouldn’t you know your ex-wife is one of the few to survive – talk about bad luck. (need a chorus of Gloom, despair and agony on me)

14

The US version of this episode has something the UK version did not.

At the end of the scene where Starbuck drops off her blood sample, the US version has a shot of Boltar standing behind Six with her bent over the table with her skirt up over her ass.

The UK version is missing that.
The remaining episodes are really strong.

15

Along with a parental warning about “the next sequence.” :smiley:

But that is a good question. Exactly what was Baltar feeling/doing when he was boffing Six on the lab table?

16

Okay, can we finally have some agreement on this?!?

Look at the spoiler use in this thread:

  1. **Zebra **uses spoilers that are for this show (even though the subject line of the thread indicates the thread contains spoilers).

  2. **jeffh3000 **has spoilers that are for future episodes, but fails to mention that until you’re actually IN the spoiler. Note: doing so is entirely counter-productive.

  3. **ddgryphon **has a spoiler that doesn’t even spoil anything - it’s merely a question pertaining to one particular scene that has no relevance to the overall plot!

Is it really that hard to label what is in your spoiler box? Simply say, “spoiler for future episodes” or “needless spoiler that has been mentioned several times in the thread already” or “I just like using coding because it makes me feel helpful when I’m actually being anti-helpful”.

:mad:

17

I kept thinking…Surely there is a way to parallel process these samples? I’m sure there is a bottleneck in place(probably at the nuke) but shouldn’t there be a way to pipeline some of the other samples while one is using the bottleneck?

Also Balter mentioned something about “not taking any time off for sleep”. Isn’t this entire process automatic? Couldn’t he sleep while one is running?

18

I assumed he was. And she doesn’t need any control over his senses. Most guys can do the same thing by thinking about something…or using porn.

19

I hate Hee Haw, and I hate the fact that I knew that’s what you were referencing!

20

Well, I finally figured out what new talent Starbuck has this week. Actually, it is more of a confirmation of an already demonstrated one. Of everyone in the fleet, she is the best at interrupting Baltar/Number Sex mind coitus. Last night was at least the second time she had to tell him to zip up.

As for the eleven hours for the Ceylon test, maybe that is Baltar and Number Sex’s way of stalling people. Not that it matters, as she says everyone will test negative anyway.